These shoes were not made for walking.
They were meant for a place with more transit (public or otherwise) than this,
Where becoming a pedestrian is simultaneously more and less pedestrian than here,
A place where the difference between sidewalk and hiking trail is more than purely semantic.
In this place, these shoes chafe the insides of your heels with every step,
And the bend of their soles over stones is not a pleasant one.
And yet you have no other--
All the others lie destroyed by time or circumstance in the past,
Victims to the same wear that incongruously scuffs the toes of this otherwise respectable pair,
The only indication that the privilege they ooze
Was nicked secondhand for a bargain from a pile of the lowest of the high.
Your hands are so rough as to snag the fabrics in those other places,
Yet you wear these costumes a bit too closely,
Spiritual jewelry of a less expected sort the only distinction setting you apart
From the loafered, pinstriped, pastel-shorted set
You loathe so keenly from afar.
You wear it for an altogether different reason than they do,
But can't help but wonder how many layers to the aesthetic there really are.
Your garb marks you an outsider in this place,
And the desert air stings your nose--
But you are forced to admit that the sap scent it carries
Is that of home.
A grasshopper springs out from the plants whose names
(real or invented)
Still lie latent in the back of your memory.
This is not the first time one has hit you in the face.
Had you the proper shoes--or even, perhaps, no shoes at all--
Had you the silent, easy gait of one to whom the rocks and ruts are no longer a surprise
Rather than clinging to the regimented steps of the best part of the worst part of your life
And thousands of miles' worth of the past compressed into a trail of jingling keys,
This would be a homecoming,
A return to a state of nature from long before the phrase recalled old dead white men.
But instead, you limp through the dust kicked up both too recently and not recently enough,
Through the unlikely path back to the unlikely home(?)
Where your unlikely life has led you,
Wondering if you will ever callus enough to sustain this journey,
Or if it's finally time for a new pair of shoes.